"Of the 25 posts Zuckerberg has published on Facebook's corporate blog in the past five years -- including today's acknowledging a long-term privacy settlement with the FTC -- I count 10 that were written to address complaints. (The rest are his personal celebrations of milestones and new products.)" Yay! We passed our tenth apology!

"The number of users of Microsoft's Facebook Integration in Windows Phone 7 proven to be a pretty accurate measure of how many Windows Phone 7 users are out there, correctly predicting the number at around 5-6 million. "Now the latest data shows a sharply upward spike in the number of users, increasing from 1,000,000 Monthly Active Users on the 11th November to 1,100,000 on the 25/11/11. "If our previously calculated multiple holds true that would correspond to around 600,000 new Windows Phone 7 users, presumably buyers of the Nokia Lumia 800, and HTC Titan, Radar, Samsung Focus S and Focus Flash, although I suspect the massive Nokia push would have the lion share of the numbers. "Of course Android activates more than this in one day, but for Windows Phone it is a pretty big deal, and about 3 times faster than sales in the two weeks preceding." No clue on why the 5-6m number is correct, but clearly an upward spike with the Lumia's sale date.

Patrick Moorhead: "It all starts with the end user and making choices. If posed with the question, "if you had to choose between your phone of the PC, which one would you pick?" Sure, most want both, but making them choose makes them prioritize, and most would pick the phone. Why? One reason is that its so personal. People take it in the bed, bathroom, our pocket, on the dinner table. It knows where we are, what we're doing, who we're with, can communicate how we feel, etc. There are even reports that people would rather starve or refrain from sex rather than separate from their phone. Net-net, the phone is more personal and one variable that could, scenario speaking, accelerate the erosion and "take down" of the PC." More that the phone gets more use than the PC, which thus gets replaced less often.

"Computing power has increased some 600-fold over the past 15 years; 2.6 billion transistors can now be crammed onto a single computer chip. This advancement has facilitated the ability to trade ever-larger volumes of shares. During the 1960s, just under 17 billion shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. That amount was surpassed over just four average trading days in September 2011."

"Passwords and login details belonging to the United Nations have been published on the internet by a hacking group who believe that the UN is guilty of corruption. "The TeaMp0isoN hacking gang has leaked over one hundred usernames, email addresses and passwords that appear to belong to individuals at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), UNICEF, World Health Organisation (WHO) and other groups."

Mary Jo Foley: "The Daily is reporting via unnamed sources that Microsoft is planning to roll out Office for the iPad in 2012. "I'd be more surprised if the Softies didn't roll out some kind of Office release for the iPad, given they've already done OneNote for the iPhone and are continuing to support for Office on Macs. "No-brainer or not, The Daily's November 29 report stirs up the age-old debate for Microsoft when it comes to all of its software and services. Would it be more profitable and preferable for Microsoft to keep a given product or service a Windows-only offering? Or would Microsoft make more money and attract more users by porting their apps to non-Windows-based platforms?" Or wait for Windows 8 tablets, and do it on that? Yup, that would make more money.

"I am not speaking out of turn here in saying that this is a very common theme and a common argument and it drives me insane and most of the teachers in the group were wearily starting to accept defeat. I have also, to my utter despair, seen members of Young Rewired State fall at the same hurdle, where they have gone into schools and suggested running computing clubs or events, only to be patronised and dismissed. "There are so many counter-arguments to it aren't there? But you know that in fact, these are not the real reasons, if they were Physics would not be taught, nor music, nor high-jumps, back-flips or burpeez - who cares, right?" If people were suggesting not teaching history, or physics, or English, we'd laugh at them. When they suggest not teaching coding, everyone agrees.

"On Tuesday there has been sensational and inaccurate reporting regarding a potential security vulnerability with some HP LaserJet printers. No customer has reported unauthorized access. Speculation regarding potential for devices to catch fire due to a firmware change is false. "HP LaserJet printers have a hardware element called a 'thermal breaker' that is designed to prevent the fuser from overheating or causing a fire. It cannot be overcome by a firmware change or this proposed vulnerability." Spoilsports. Ruining a good scare like that.

"The arrival of Apple's iCloud and iTunes Match this month, coupled with Spotify's October drop of its invite-only requirement, seem to have shaken the online music world. "All the other online music service players seem to be desperately searching for ways to compete." Included in this article: Napster has been bought (in, take note, an all-stock deal) from Best Buy by Rhapsody (the former Real Networks). Rhapsody has about 800,000 paying subscribers. Napster has... an unknown number. Spotify has about 10m, of whom 2m are paying. Is Napster + Rhapsody bigger than Spotify?

"In his Autumn statement, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer gave commitments to open up public sector data in travel, health care, weather and house price data. "George Osborne also announced a new scheme for relief on investments in startup companies. Named the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), it will be available from 6 April 2012 and will run alongside the existing Enterprise Investment Scheme, but will be targeted at start up companies." This is a good thing.

Despite getting a 75% approval rating, "Tagbot was [also] sadly unable to properly respond to 'Why is Jeremy Clarkson?', 'What's the point of Belgium?' and the plaintive 'Does she love me?' - but did get a Goodbot rating for returning pages for 'Is David Cameron a lizard' and 'Robot apocalypse'. "We hope you've enjoyed this beta test - thanks to everyone who used it. We fully expect to feed the lessons into social media services in the future."

"Point 1: You need to be able to launch a voice app like this quickly. The iPhone 4S has a leg up by allowing you to long-press the home button to launch Siri at any time. Simple, quick. With Cluzee, you need a home screen shortcut, which means having to wake and unlock the phone first. If the app's not yet in memory, it takes several seconds to launch -- an eternity for this sort of thing. It really has to be faster. (And it is, so long as Cluzee remains loaded.) "On to Point 2: Cluzee understood our tests some of the time, but not all of the time. And even in our abbreviated use, it seemed to struggle more than it should. That ties into Point 3: Returning results for local pizza locations took so long we thought the app had hung on us (force closes are not uncommon at this point). And opening applications through Cluzee took too many steps. (Us: "Open Google Maps." Cluzee: "Which application do you want me to open?" Grrrrrr.)" Android Central are biased, though, right?